ADHD Medication Can Cause Addiction and Death

This article is for the hundreds of thousands of parents whose children are currently taking prescription medications for Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and for those who have kids now struggling with addiction to amphetamines or stimulants.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) reports that more than 4 percent of 12 to 17 year olds have abused prescription medication during a one month period. In addition there are more than 761,000 people abusing stimulants in the United States currently, and prescription drugs remain the most commonly abused drugs next to alcohol.

What many don’t know is that a large percentage of prescription drug and stimulant addicts actually started using these drugs legally or were prescribed them by a doctor at a young age. According to Erica Catton, Director of Promotion for Narconon, East U.S. more and more rehabilitation centers are seeing a large increase in the number of clients coming in for treatment for prescription drug addiction that legally took these drugs or similar ones as a child or adolescent.

One example of this is an ex-addict named John. John was prescribed Ritalin as a kid and later became addicted to cocaine. He explained in a recent interview that both Cocaine and Ritalin gave him the same rush and that the first time he used cocaine the high felt “strangely familiar” to him. Before he knew it, he was hooked on the drug and ended going through the Narconon drug rehabilitation program to handle his addiction.

Now, several years clean, John explains that taking Ritalin as a child opened up the door to his drug addiction. Today, he understands he is one of the lucky ones who were able to get his life back through drug treatment.

When NIDA wrote, “Youth who use other drugs are more likely to abuse prescription medications,” many probably didn’t realize how true that statement really was and how it can also apply in reverse – those who take prescriptions are likely to abuse other drugs down the road.

For those who don’t end up addicts as a result of these drugs, the following information may be enough to steer you from ever allowing anyone you love to take them.

According to a recent study done by Columbia University, there is a link between the use of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) medication and sudden cardiac death in children who were healthy before taking the medication. The study states that out of 546 children who died suddenly, nearly 2 percent were taking stimulants and more specifically the drug, Ritalin.

Right now Ritalin is being prescribed to several million children in the United States.  In some cases, these children are as young as 2 years old. Some of the side effects of this medication include nervousness, insomnia, skin rash, fevers, dermatitis, anorexia, nausea, dizziness, heart palpitations, headaches, drowsiness; blood pressure and pulse changes, cardiac arrhythmia; abdominal pain; weight loss, Tourette's syndrome and, of course, death.

More than 4 million people in the United States have abused these drugs and other prescriptions and/or are currently addicted to them.  Further information about ADHD and stimulant drug addiction and effective addiction recovery can be attained by calling Narconon at 877-237-3307.